Links - 1st November 2011

Comment: "The issue really has to do with changes in the declension of regular and irregular English verbs over time. Old Anglo-Saxon words commonly were strong and therefore would change their past tense forms. (“To run” becoming “ran” is an easy example.) French influence helped bring about the passive ending “-ed” for the past tense. (“To walk” becomes “walked” of course.) Over centuries and millions of speakers, the regular forms begin to take precedence over the irregular. This can be seen in the old fashioned “learnt” vs. our more common “learned.” It’s the same with “burnt/burned” or “dove/dived.” Some forms are in more flux than others. The argument is that in hundreds of years English speakers will say “runned” instead of “ran” no matter how horrendous it sounds to us now. What the Usage Panel decides on this business is, I suppose, their purview, but there’s no s...